Kipling Ave Toronto, Glass Container Plant closing

Owens-Illinois, Inc is closing it’s Kipling Ave Plant in West Toronto totally on Sept 30 ’08. This is a huge loss of manufacturing jobs in West Toronto. Yet it is even more of a complete loss of a type of manufacturing that will NOT return to West Toronto – with all it’s mid and highly skilled jobs. Glass container manufacturing is an expensive business to set up a plant for production, and a costly price sensitive business to run. Once this glass plant is dismantled it will not likely ever be rebuilt especially in West Toronto. This plant which used to be the Consumers Glass plant before Owens-Illinois, Inc purchased it, is one of the last plants in West Toronto that required a highly trained and carefully skilled large workforce. The tumble down effect on suppliers such as automation and mechanical services companies will be great, as this manufacturing type requires a lot of maintenance.

This is an old plant and the company must have had a difficult time maintaining it, although it would be much better for West Toronto to retain this plant, the company will still operate a new facility in Brampton.

Now that land is gone, there will be probably be one or two years of decommissioning and land use studies. Following that, will be a probable sale, perhaps for condos, light industrial, or townhouse tract housing.